And now it starts. Congress should legalize cannabis now—for the economy and for social justice

[Sunsettommy]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Fear of Mexican immigrants.

And let's remember, while there is no taxonomical difference between hemp and marijuana, hemp is not likely to get anyone stoned...

Hemp was declared illegal in 1937, WHY?

 

[hjmick]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Fear of Mexican immigrants.

And let's remember, while there is no taxonomical difference between hemp and marijuana, hemp is not likely to get anyone stoned...

Hemp was declared illegal in 1937, WHY?

Fear. Of. Mexican. Immigrants.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

They'll soon legalize it, maybe not this next session, but it's coming.

So don't worry, all Americans will soon be able to legally stay high and be unproductive.

 

[Blackrook]

Marijuana derailed the lives of two men I knew. When one imbibes too much, one loses ambition and then everything falls apart: school, career, relationships, etc.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

As long as they enforce criminalization of public use.

Start with alcohol and tobacco first.

We’ve already criminalized tobacco in many places. People don’t pour alcohol into others bodies in public with impunity. When they try they get busted. Now we have to apply those standards to pot.

Cannabis Bars!

You’re wishing bad karma on your children.
What is it about lefties that makes them so bigoted and intolerant? Must be stupidity.

 

[Blackrook]

Marijuana derailed the lives of two men I knew. When one imbibes too much, one loses ambition and then everything falls apart: school, career, relationships, etc.

Alcohol is bad, but it doesn't rob people of the will to do things in life.

 

[Polishprince]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Here's the evidence. Look at the prices on this hemp clothing.

This is a lot more than anything else that you will find in a Walmart.

Walmart is a retailer that was founded in the Ozark Region of Arkansas, where the people go out and shoot their own dinner, whittle their own teeth.

Hoodlamb Herringbone Hemp Shirt

Hemp Clothing, Hemp Clothes, Hemp Womens Clothing, Hemp Mens Clothing, Hemp Pants, Hemp Shirts, Hemp Stores, Hemp Shoes, Hemp Bags, for all of your Hemp Products

www.hempest.com

 

[Dana7360]

The same people screaming for freedom want to keep pot illegal. Makes no sense. Pot has many beneficial qualities for people suffering from pain, stress, anxiety, etc. Leave it up to the individual to decide how they use it. Where's the argument against this?

The argument is that marijuana impairs people's judgment and motor skills. People show up to work stoned and operate machinery, exposing their employer to liability.

I haven't been able to smoke so much weed even in modern times to where I could not ride a bicycle.

I'm sorry, but a man under the influence of a substance is the worst judge of whether he is impaired.

Then never, ever get into a Boeing airplane.

 

[Dana7360]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Fear of Mexican immigrants.

And let's remember, while there is no taxonomical difference between hemp and marijuana, hemp is not likely to get anyone stoned...

Hemp was declared illegal in 1937, WHY?

Paper and cotton.

I forget who owned the trees and cotton but some very wealthy people didn't want the competition from hemp.

So they paid off politicians to make it illegal.

Trees ended up being the standard to make paper.

Cotton ended up being the standard to make clothes. At least at the time. Now polyester synthetics make most of our clothing.

Up until nixon it was just a misdemeanor offense.

When nixon didn't like all those people protesting him at the White House he had to find a way around the constitution to stop them.

So he had his AG at the time reclassify marijuana to a schedule 1 controlled substance. Making it a federal felony to have, grow or sell it.

 

[the other mike]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Fear of Mexican immigrants.

And let's remember, while there is no taxonomical difference between hemp and marijuana, hemp is not likely to get anyone stoned...

Hemp was declared illegal in 1937, WHY?

Paper and cotton.

I forget who owned the trees and cotton but some very wealthy people didn't want the competition from hemp.

So they paid off politicians to make it illegal.

Trees ended up being the standard to make paper.

Cotton ended up being the standard to make clothes. At least at the time. Now polyester synthetics make most of our clothing.

Up until nixon it was just a misdemeanor offense.

When nixon didn't like all those people protesting him at the White House he had to find a way around the constitution to stop them.

So he had his AG at the time reclassify marijuana to a schedule 1 controlled substance. Making it a federal felony to have, grow or sell it.

Think of the environmental impact alone of 100 years of tree loss and paper mill pollution that could have been completely avoided.

Cannabis industryâs lobbying on track to hit a new record

After shelling out $2.7 million to influence lawmakers and regulators in 2018, the cannabis industry has disclosed spending at least $1.6 million in 2019’s...

www.marketwatch.com

 

[hjmick]

Drugs are regulated at both the state and federal level. I think it's time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee. The continued federal criminalization of marijuana no longer serves a good purpose and should be ended immediately.

The benefit would be that marijuana businesses could put their money in the bank and fully join the legal economy.

Why would they want to do that? If I am pushing grass in front of a local high school, why sign up to pay taxes?

Cannabis should be sold anywhere alcohol and tobacco are sold.

So you want it sold in Walmart?

What I want sold in Walmart are hemp based products such as clothing, rope and paper, all far superior to cotton.

Hemp is a lot pricier than cotton or synthetic fibers, and Walmart shoppers are interested in being frugal.

You'd do better to try and get Ralph Lauren or other designers to release hemp clothes. Sounds practical I guess, after you get tired of your hemp necktie you can just roll it up and smoke it

Really?

Where is the evidence?

Do you know WHY Hemp was declared illegal in 1937?

Fear of Mexican immigrants.

And let's remember, while there is no taxonomical difference between hemp and marijuana, hemp is not likely to get anyone stoned...

Hemp was declared illegal in 1937, WHY?

Paper and cotton.

I forget who owned the trees and cotton but some very wealthy people didn't want the competition from hemp.

So they paid off politicians to make it illegal.

Trees ended up being the standard to make paper.

Cotton ended up being the standard to make clothes. At least at the time. Now polyester synthetics make most of our clothing.

Up until nixon it was just a misdemeanor offense.

When nixon didn't like all those people protesting him at the White House he had to find a way around the constitution to stop them.

So he had his AG at the time reclassify marijuana to a schedule 1 controlled substance. Making it a federal felony to have, grow or sell it.

Racism... not paper and cotton...


...why was marijuana ever illegal?

The short answer is racism. At the turn of the 20th century, cannabis—as it was then commonly known in the United States—was a little-used drug among Americans. With the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, however, many Mexicans began moving to the United States, and they brought with them the tradition of smoking marihuana. Amid a growing fear of Mexican immigrants, hysterical claims about the drug began to circulate, such as allegations that it caused a “lust for blood.” In addition, the term cannabis was largely replaced by the Anglicized marijuana, which some speculated was done to promote the foreignness of the drug and thus stoke xenophobia. Around this time many states began passing laws to ban pot.

In the 1930s Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, turned the battle against marijuana into an all-out war. Some believe that he was motivated less by safety concerns—the vast majority of scientists he surveyed claimed that the drug was not dangerous—and more by a desire to promote his newly created department. Whatever the impetus, Anslinger sought a federal ban on the drug, and to this end he initiated a high-profile campaign that relied heavily on racism. Anslinger claimed that the majority of pot smokers were minorities, including African Americans, and that marijuana had a negative effect on these “degenerate races,” such as inducing violence or causing insanity. Furthermore, he noted, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” Perhaps even more worrisome to Anslinger was pot’s supposed threat to white women’s virtue. He believed that smoking pot would result in their having sex with black men.

Why Is Marijuana Illegal in the U.S.?

Get the 411 on why 420 was outlawed in the U.S.

www.britannica.com

...Attitudes regarding marijuana started to shift in the early 1900’s following the Mexican Revolution, as the subsequent hefty influx of Mexican immigrants into the U.S.. Mexican immigrants came to Texas and Louisiana and brought with them their cultural tradition of smoking marijuana leaf in cigarettes and pipes for medicinal purposes2.

Americans at the time were only abreast with cannabis in the form of oil or hashish, which they took orally². Plus, Mexicans called their cannabis “marihuana,” a term unfamiliar to Americans¹.

Unhappy with the inbound flow of immigrants, the U.S. media, including newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, began to falsely spread claims that Mexican immigrants were being disruptive, behaviors they attributed to their ‘marihuana’ use¹. Cannabis began to be vilified.

There were congressional hearings regarding marijuana law in the 1930s, with some lawmakers looking to control Mexican immigration deceitfully by falsely claiming that marijuana would cause men of color to be violent against white women. The head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, argued that the exposure to marijuana was causing an increase in marijuana smoking among reports of middle-class people...

Why is Marijuana Illegal? A Look at the History of MJ in America

Cannabis was at one point freely cultivated and used in the U.S. What happened? Here we take a look at the history of marijuana law in America.

www.medicalmarijuanainc.com

...Despite its medical usefulness, many Americans’ attitudes towards cannabis shifted at the turn of the century. This was at least partly motivated by Mexican immigration to the U.S. around the time of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, according to Eric Schlosser, author of Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market.

“The prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant immigrants also extended to their traditional means of intoxication: smoking marijuana,” Schlosser wrote for The Atlantic in 1994. “Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a ‘lust for blood,’ and gave its users ‘superhuman strength.’ Rumors spread that Mexicans were distributing this ‘killer weed’ to unsuspecting American schoolchildren.”

It’s worth noting that research has shown alcohol to be more dangerous than marijuana. In addition, cannabis doesn’t really cause superhuman strength, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s fact sheet on the drug says that “No death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.”

Even though there was no evidence to support claims that marijuana had a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect, 29 states outlawed marijuana between 1916 and 1931. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 essentially banned it nation-wide despite objections from the American Medical Association related to medical usage. This act came just a year after the film Reefer Madness warned parents that drug dealers would invite their teenagers to jazz parties and get them hooked on “reefer...”

Why the US Made Marijuana Illegal | HISTORY

Fear of Mexican immigrants led to the criminalization of marijuana.

www.history.com

 

[Blackrook]

I don't believe conspiracy theories about why they criminalized marijuana.

Marijuana does brain damage that is far more debilitating than alcohol.

Most people with common sense stop taking marijuana when they know it's time to grow up and accept adult responsibilities.

 

[Mr Natural]

Most people with common sense stop taking marijuana when they know it's time to grow up and accept adult responsibilities.

You mean like allowing yourself to be controlled by imaginary beings and a lot crazy made up rules?

 

[martybegan]

Leave it to the States to figure out.

You are absolutely right, Marty.
It's a state issue not the federal government.

This is my position too, the federal gov't is sticking it's nose into too many place where it is not needed.

That wasn't the intent of the Founding Fathers. Just the opposite.
And, that is what is wrong with our federal government today.

The Founding Fathers would have stood by while the townspeople strung drug dealers up from the nearest tree.

A bunch of the founding fathers were in the alcohol business.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Leave it to the States to figure out.

You are absolutely right, Marty.
It's a state issue not the federal government.

This is my position too, the federal gov't is sticking it's nose into too many place where it is not needed.

That wasn't the intent of the Founding Fathers. Just the opposite.
And, that is what is wrong with our federal government today.

The Founding Fathers would have stood by while the townspeople strung drug dealers up from the nearest tree.

A bunch of the founding fathers were in the alcohol business.

So?

 

[martybegan]

Leave it to the States to figure out.

You are absolutely right, Marty.
It's a state issue not the federal government.

This is my position too, the federal gov't is sticking it's nose into too many place where it is not needed.

That wasn't the intent of the Founding Fathers. Just the opposite.
And, that is what is wrong with our federal government today.

The Founding Fathers would have stood by while the townspeople strung drug dealers up from the nearest tree.

A bunch of the founding fathers were in the alcohol business.

So?

Booze has had it's detractors as well. It's nothing more than an "acceptable" mind altering substance.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Leave it to the States to figure out.

You are absolutely right, Marty.
It's a state issue not the federal government.

This is my position too, the federal gov't is sticking it's nose into too many place where it is not needed.

That wasn't the intent of the Founding Fathers. Just the opposite.
And, that is what is wrong with our federal government today.

The Founding Fathers would have stood by while the townspeople strung drug dealers up from the nearest tree.

A bunch of the founding fathers were in the alcohol business.

So?

Booze has had it's detractors as well. It's nothing more than an "acceptable" mind altering substance.

Not every drink of alcohol is mind altering. There is no equality of substance.

 

[martybegan]

Leave it to the States to figure out.

You are absolutely right, Marty.
It's a state issue not the federal government.

This is my position too, the federal gov't is sticking it's nose into too many place where it is not needed.

That wasn't the intent of the Founding Fathers. Just the opposite.
And, that is what is wrong with our federal government today.

The Founding Fathers would have stood by while the townspeople strung drug dealers up from the nearest tree.

A bunch of the founding fathers were in the alcohol business.

So?

Booze has had it's detractors as well. It's nothing more than an "acceptable" mind altering substance.

Not every drink of alcohol is mind altering. There is no equality of substance.

Pot is pretty equivalent, and actually harder to overdose.

 

[Mr Natural]

The times in my life that I was truly fucked up, it was alcohol more than weed that was the culprit.

By far.

 

[Turtlesoup]

"Over the course of 2020, Congress has at times acted quickly to stop the hemorrhaging of American jobs lost to the pandemic fallout. And at other times, including now, Congress has fiddled over the contents of massive relief packages. One thing is certain: As cases continue to surge nationwide, American families facing grave uncertainty have found little relief.

Meanwhile, for minorities, particularly hard-hit by the pandemic both in terms of health and economics, the long-simmering and systemic scourge of racial inequality has erupted into nationwide demonstrations. Millions of Americans have marched in the streets for social justice, despite our dual public health and economic crises, risking personal health as cases surge.

The new Congress, and the incoming Biden-Harris administration, certainly have a lot to consider. But there’s one move they could make that could address America’s economic and social problems simultaneously: the legalization of cannabis."

Commentary: Congress should legalize cannabis now—for the economy and for social justice

Decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level could create jobs and tax revenue, while helping Black and Brown communities hurt by the 'War on Drugs.'

fortune.com

All we need is more pot making people even dumber.........NO THANK YOU.